


Learning to Drive

by Supertights



Category: No One Lives (2012)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Families of Choice, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Mass Murderers, Original Character Death(s), Yuletide 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-01 09:42:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2768510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Supertights/pseuds/Supertights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone came from somewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning to Drive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selkit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selkit/gifts).



> Huge thanks to my beta, lanalucy, for her beta excellence and all around awesomeness.

He’d been known by many names over the years but only one meant anything to him, and he didn't allow many individuals, not even his beloved Betty, to call him by that name. It was a name shared only between Father and himself. Although Father had not been his biological father; that particular man had died a long time ago. He barely remembered him, except in certain lights at certain angles when he looked in a mirror.

The man he was privileged to call Father was the one who had recognized his true nature and had spent years refining it through pain and love. He had not been the only son, there had been others, but none so well-loved or admired.

None lived as long as he had.

None were allowed to leave Father, none except him.

Privileged.

Father helped him choose his first car at seventeen; he'd become consumed with an itch so dark and restless. They'd traveled five hours to a large town, not quite a city, and cruised the main streets looking at the car lots for something that spoke to them. They saw it on a half-full lot hidden at the back behind other newer cars. Original paint worn down in places, scratches painted over but not filled, old and solid, with a large trunk. They'd talked details with the salesman - engine this, suspension that, tires, gas mileage.

They wanted the car for less than the salesman was willing to part with it for - they were cutting into his profit margin. Father had made a show then, chewing his lip and side-eying the guy until, in complete discomfort, the man had conceded just to get them to leave. The car was paid for with a roll of cash Father pulled from his pocket with studied indifference, swiping his tongue over his thumb to wet it, slowly drawing bills from the roll. The salesman licked his lips and rubbed his hands together, discomfort forgotten, a gleeful stereotype. "They only remember the cash roll," Father later confided. "Not the face behind it. That's why credit cards are dangerous, they got your name on them."

He nodded and agreed.

"A birthday gift," Father had proclaimed, proudly. "Go give it a spin."

Many hours later, when the world had turned dark and silent, he drove up the long gravel driveway, a single flickering light on downstairs, the state forest behind the house a mass of deeper darkness below a starry sky. He found Father waiting in one of two large easy chairs beside the open fire. It had burned down, crackling softly in the otherwise quiet house. Father was asleep, an ancient book open in his lap. The old man started awake as he purposefully stepped on a loose floorboard. They smiled at each other warmly, like any father and son might, and he was invited to sit in the other chair.

"How was it?" asked Father, sitting up a little straighter, attentively.

"Perfect. The car was perfect." The thick metal had softened the kicking and screaming coming from the trunk, and the old eight track player and scratchy speakers had drowned out the rest. He didn't recall the band, it wasn't important. Music meant little to him other than covering other noises.

Father inspected the interior and trunk for him, running a white-gloved finger down the worn, cracked leather and the carpet. He found nothing, not even the filth they'd purchased with the car to begin with. "Nice job. Big Joe's?"

Big Joe's Car Wash and Detailing service was expensive but open seven days a week until late each night. Old Joe had sold the business to less reputable folk who kept it open for longer hours and for less savory reasons. It served Father's purposes though, as he rolled through late in the evening or early in the morning with a soiled vehicle. "Picked up a dog, lying on the road, poor thing didn't make it," was the old man's standard reply to any questions on blood stains.

  
"Pick up a dog again?" the attendant had asked as he rolled through in his new old car.

He nodded. "Poor thing didn't make it."

"You and your dad are regular good Samaritans, ain't you?" said the teenager, a smirk on his barely moustached face. "Picking up all these dying dogs."

"Hmmm," he agreed. "Someone has to try. I'll be over at Little Joe's when it's ready."

Little Joe was Big Joe's only son, in his fifties, and proprietor of the only dive bar in town.

  
"That new attendant has a mouth," grunted Father.

"Not anymore," he replied.

Father gave a great belly laugh that rolled around his body until he had to wipe his eyes and wheeze for breath.

He left Father for the last time in the late autumn of that year, when the leaves had mostly fallen and snow had come a little early. He drove down the old road from the farm house, kicking up stones, never looking back, nothing to see if he had.

The road, while familiar, felt new and exciting. He paused at the end of the drive and looked right, then left; there was no ahead to speak of. No traffic at the early hour. Left felt good, so he clicked the indicator on and turned. The old car accelerated beautifully. The thrum of the engine vibrating through the car and his body was pleasant.

He spent many years honing his craft after he left home, sometimes receiving letters from his Father, to which he never replied. When they stopped coming, he turned toward home with reluctance. There were things to tidy up and bodies to bury. He drove for days, towing his familiar trailer behind. The BMW was a treat with the leather and luxury.

Stopping at a family restaurant on the edge of a town a few hours from the farmhouse, he ordered steak and flirted a little with the waitress. She hovered attentively at his table most of the night despite it being busy. A single beer, a glass of water, pie for dessert, then coffee to accompany.

There was a hum of cheerful noise around him, the atmosphere one of family and warmth. He basked in it, for he had been too long out of company that could be categorized as family or warm, or even cheerful.

The tip was generous. Not too generous though, the service had been good but he didn't want to be remembered for more than charming conversation. He paid with a credit card, a smile on his face as he remembered his Father's warnings.

"I like your name," the waitress said casually as she put through the payment, waiting for it to clear. Returning the card, her fingers brushed across his, soft and feather light in their passing, her eyes lit up as they met his, her smile genuine. "I've never met anyone with that name before, it's cool."

"Thank you," he replied, eyeing her name badge, clipped to a mostly clean apron, he smiled one last time. "Elizabeth."

"Betty," she corrected. "No one excepting my Nonna calls me Elizabeth."

  
He drove home, never passing the speed limit, traveling unnoticed on the empty road. Putting the car in park, he got out and opened the gate, new since he’d left home, and drove through, stopping only to close the gate behind him. A For Sale sign hung from the gate, a 'Sold' sticker emblazoned on it.

He left the car and trailer near the road, behind a stand of trees, and walked the rest of the way.

The farmhouse had been repainted, a soft mauve that looked grey in the moonlight, and the barn was painted a similar shade. Security lights dotted the exterior of both buildings but he didn't set them off as he walked the perimeter. He didn't much care for the color but then his opinion didn't matter anymore. The windows were decorated with lace curtains, and the porch had a long swing chair that moved in the light breeze. It looked more lived-in than when he'd actually lived there. The back of the house had a new garden, vegetables, trees, runner with young beans. A fence surrounded the garden, likely to protect it from animals.

His eyes grew accustomed to the dark and he found his way back around to the front of the farmhouse. He sat on the porch swing for a time, thinking about the past before standing with a sigh. He walked to the barn and heard the shuffle of hooves and the soft huffs of animals breathing loudly in sleep. The barn door opened easily - no more squeaks from unoiled hinges.

The hatch was where Father had left it, installed under a generator, old and rusted, but still working. He released the hidden catch and the whole thing moved on rails. Underneath, a handle pulled it back into position. He climbed down stairs dusted and cobwebbed with disuse.

There were no lights down in the tunnels, no switch to illuminate the darkness.

A muffled moan punctuated the gloom and he started forward toward it, along a narrow tunnel, dug from the dirt a long time ago. Braced like a mine shaft, it led on a downward angle to a metal door. He touched the handle, inspecting the hinges to find they had been oiled recently.

Opening the door led to another tunnel, this one with barred cells on either side, a great many of them. Strangely, all of the cell doors were open; Father never left them open. The smell overcame him immediately - dead bodies, a lot of dead bodies, in various states of decomposition.

"Boy?" asked the voice before moaning once again. "Is that you?"

"It is," he said. "Father."

He risked a glance into each cell, to ensure the bodies were indeed bodies. His brothers and sisters were in various states of starvation and oddly, missing some limbs. He wondered if they'd chewed them off to stave off death.

"You came back--for me?" A question, somewhat delirious in its delivery.

"No." He was coming to the source of the voice, the end of the tunnel. "I came back to bury my family."

Father laughed, rough and tired. "That's good. I'm more dead than living anyway. Best you hurry it along now." He was so close, the old man's bloody phlegm dotted his shirt as spittal sprayed from his mouth with each word.

The air was rich with disease, fever, infection, old blood, and other less sanitary odors. He reached forward and cupped Father's face gently. The old man's whiskered cheeks rasped at his palms. "Who did this to you?" he asked. His hand traveled lower to brush across the stump of one arm, then the other, both removed above the elbow. He hung on chains slung under his armpits; disease festered openly there.

"Complicated," breathed Father, with a wheeze. "Your Sister came home."

‘Sister?’ He was surprised, Father had never mentioned a Sister who had been permitted to leave before him.

"Before you, long time before." From the great barrel chest, thinner than he remembered, a bare skim of flesh over bones, came a cough that wouldn't stop. "She's got a Family of her own now."

He turned and looked back down the tunnel. The door stood open. "Tell me," he said, facing away from Father. "Tell me what I need to know."

No reply came. Dead or unconscious, Father would have to remain so for a time.

Starting back along the tunnel, he heard the horses whinny a greeting, the milk cows lowing softly above. He ducked into one of the cells. A Brother, a big youth, lay on a cot, blanket pulled tight around him. His dead eyes were fixed open on the tunnel, fear on his face. The boy didn’t look long dead, a day or two at the most.

‘Fattened for a special occasion perhaps?’ he wondered.

He heard the generator slide on its rails at the end of the tunnel. They would know as soon as their line of sight cleared the hatch someone had been here.

Pushing the body over, he lay on the cot and pulled it over him, breathing deeply before the weight settled in a smothering embrace. Tucking the blanket carefully back into place, he waited.

A moan. Father had roused. "Boy, is that you?" the old man moaned again.

There was a slither of steel. "No, Father. It is your one true Daughter."

Father made a pained noise. "I thought it was my boy. Fever's getting to me."

"Maybe not--" Her voice was aged, hard and cold.

The sound of an edged blade slicing through flesh was one he was all too accustomed to. Stabbing also. Slicing and stabbing had two distinctly different sounds though, and he heard the woman move through the cells stabbing bodies. He braced himself as footsteps approached the body. His dead Brother shivered on the knife as it stabbed into his chest and lifted slightly as the blade was withdrawn. The footsteps moved away and he heard her stab again and again until she grunted finally. "Maybe you are seeing things, old man."

The metal door swung shut with a bang and the generator slid back into place above. He didn't move. He was a methodical man; he'd only survived as long as he had by patience and a keen sense of self-preservation. He waited, motionless beneath the body, breathing slowly through the tiny gap he'd left along the wall side of the cot.

He heard a shuffle at the door of the tunnel, the scuff of shoes.

"Damn you and your fever dreams," said the woman. "I'll be back for you later, old man."

The door slammed shut once more and he heard her leave properly this time. He waited, moving slowly, easing out from under the body. Father's ragged breathing was the only sound he could hear.

"Son?" called Father softly. "You still here?"

He drew his knife, the blade well seasoned with lives taken. Narrow and long, it made short work of people. He brought it to Father's throat and pressed in.

"You'll take care of all this for me?" Father asked.

Nodding, he kissed the old man's forehead. "Yes." The blade pinched into the paper thin skin of Father's throat and sliced it open. He left the old man hanging, blood spilling down his chest, the dirty white shirt black in the dark. It had sprayed over him too, but he'd clean up later.

He stood at the door, breathing lightly. For the longest time he listened, but there was no noise beyond. Opening the door a crack, he gazed up the tunnel; it was empty. The stairs showed no sign of his Sister's passage and he brushed his fingers across the surface. The dust captured in lacquer, cobwebs in spray adhesive. They would only fool him once.

The generator moved easily and he crept from the tunnels like a spider, low to the ground. He moved to the rear, where a hidden panel swung out and he escaped the barn. He jogged back toward the road. The car and trailer were where he’d left them, still hidden behind scrub and trees. He opened the trailer unit and stripped out of his bloody shirt. His watch put the time at two in the morning. The farmhouse was still dark in the distance.

His Father was dead and had placed a burden of responsibility on him. He had a Sister he didn't know and didn't care to know. Her Family when she was dealt with. Most importantly, there was a girl named Betty waiting for him.

He took the crossbow from the casing and checked the scope. The house came into stark focus. A woman stood in the upstairs bedroom his Father had slept in, standing at the window, staring out. At least twenty years older than he was, she had a cruel face and empty eyes.

He counted twelve in her Family, different ages, different genders, all with her cruelty, all empty inside. He hunted them patiently, in traps that Father had set years ago, or with his knives and crossbow. He delivered them back to their Mother, delighting in her screams of rage at each discovery.

Only the last of her children gave him reason to pause. A giant of a woman with the face of an angel, three bolts in her body, multiple bleeding wounds to her arms and legs, and still she came at him. She moved like a dancer, but she had fed on his Brothers and Sisters and become fat on their flesh. When she tired, he struck the killing blow with gentle precision. His knife penetrated the flesh in her armpit and impaled his arm up to the wrist in her body. He cut her heart in half, and then in half once more.

He left the body on the porch swing.

When he came to his Sister, she was expecting him, waiting in his Father's chair beside the fire. She had a book in her hands, ancient as all Father’s books were, this one a bible, older than both of them plus their Father's age combined. A black and white photo of a very young Father and a woman holding a baby lay on top.

"He was a monster," she said, rubbing her fingertip along the faces in the photo.

"Aren't we all?" he countered, pushing her toward the barn.

"I wasn't always," her voice low.

He walked her back to the tunnel, forcing her to her knees in the pool of blood lying on the ground in front of their Father's body. She looked up at the hanging man as if to God. "I love you, Daddy," she said, tears in her eyes. "Forgive me."

He put the knife to her throat and sliced through the old flesh and bone; her head fell to the floor with a thud and lay staring up at him, eyes open.

"God forgives all his monsters," he murmured.

He released the animals, chasing them away, and burned the barn, then the farmhouse. He stood watching from a distance as the flames caught and the old wooden boards went up like tinder. When it was fully ablaze, he turned and walked back down the drive to where he’d left his car. Pausing at the trunk, he popped it open and pulled down the hidden panel. Fingers grabbed desperately at the air holes. He brushed his own fingers over hers and she scrambled back, out of sight. "I'm sorry I kept you waiting, Betty. I had some family business to take care of. Forgive me?"


End file.
